


Cybertronian Quadrant Timestamps

by tanarill



Series: Cybertronian Quadrant Shenanigans [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Accents, Accidental Flirting, Alien Culture, Alien Rituals, Anger, Ashen Romance | Auspistice, Autobots - Freeform, Cahoots, Calculations, Cave-In, Concupiscent Romance, Cybertron, Decepticons - Freeform, Deconstruction, Enemies to Friends, Engineering, F/M, First Meetings, Gender Issues, Genocide, History, IN SPACE!, In-Jokes, Jokes, Kidnapping, Love, M/M, Manufacturing, Matrix of Leadership (Transformers), Meet the Family, Multi, Negotiations, Nervousness, Overpopulation, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Poetry, Politeness, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-War, Quantum, Rebellion, Rescue, Science, Size Difference, Social Justice, Tactile, Technology, mining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 18:03:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18393566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanarill/pseuds/tanarill
Summary: Exactly what it says on the tin.





	1. The One Where Megatron Falls in Cahoots with a Quadrant Corner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carly makes a friend, and Megatron learns that tiny people have been forced to come up with some innovative solutions to problems the Cybertronian Senate brute-forced.

Carly is a little nervous about this, honestly.

It's one thing for most of the giant robots to have apparently all decided, more or less simultaneously, that they've been fighting over word definitions for the past however many millions of years; it's quite another for that to mean that the Decepticons are now allies. That's what has happened, and now she and Spike and Jamie and Raoul and a couple dozen others have been invited to go back to Cybertron with them as cultural ambassadors. There was some shouting at the UN about that, but in the end there really isn't anything the Earth can even do to Cybertron, and there isn't anything Cybertron wants from Earth that they can't get another way.

"What, really?" Carly had said. "I thought they came here to steal gas."

"The Decepticons did," explained Spike. "But only because the Autobots kept sabotaging their solar swarms. Since that's not happening anymore . . . "

"Huh," she'd said, and gone to read up on solar tech.

Now the plans are really starting to gel, so the mechs are hosting a kind of meet-and-greet weekend at the Autobots' Detroit base. Carly has met all of the Autobots before, of course, but a bunch of Decepticons have been invited, and there's going to be a big round-table discussion later. Just now she's being introduced to Spike's Decepticon acquaintances, from least to most threatening. She's not an idiot. She knows this is going to result in a meeting with the Decepticon in one of Spike's quadrants, and all these other people are Spike being nice and working up to it.

"Spike," she says, when the panther-sized and -shaped Ravage walks away. "Can we cut to the chase already?"

"Er," says Spike, glancing sideways, nervous.

"It's a little late _now_ to be remembering your matesprit and deciding not to ash up with them," says Carly, exasperated. "Anyway, he's not going to hurt me." No Decepticon had hurt any human since the war had dissolved.

"That's not what I'm worried about," says Spike. "Oh well. Come on."

Megatron is sitting on the ground near one of the table-platforms. These are something like a Japanese kotatsu as far as the mechs are concerned, and a flight of stairs for the humans, a good compromise for having conversations. A whole bunch of government suits are standing there, talking to Megatron. They all look extremely frustrated. Megatron, if Decepticons have similar body language to Autobots, is mostly bored and a little amused.

At least, he is until he spots Spike. Then he shifts, sensory systems coming online and his whole frame loosening up. It's not hyperbole to say he lights up. He looks down at the men, and says, "This conversation is over; my auspitice has just arrived. Run along now." He even makes a shooing motion. It doesn't get anywhere near the men, but it's enough to frighten them into leaving. Carly hears a very clear, "Fucking _'Cons_ from one of them as he passes."

They climb up to the table, and Megatron says, "Spike! I was wondering if someone had kidnapped you again."

"I don't think it's kidnapping if I'm cooperating," Spike jokes - jokes! - back. Then he sobers, and very carefully, says a few words in what Carly realizes after a moment must be Cybertronian.

"Your accent is atrocious," says Megatron, which does nothing to hide how utterly charmed he is.

Spike shrugs. "I can't pronounce more than one tone at a time, and I can't actually hear any of the high-frequency stuff. That's the best I can do." He turns to Carly. "In English, that was, oh - "

"You who dwell in my outer leaf, I present to you the one who fills my heart. Please accept him tenderly, for he is dear to me."

"Don't you mean she?" asks Carly, looking up at him, a little shocked.

"I know what I said."

Spike puts a hand over his eyes. "Don't go down this road. I can get them to understand biological sex, but they have decided they're all outraged by the concept of gender."

"It's what the Senate did!" says Megatron. "We don't do that!"

"Now you've got him going," says Spike, utterly resigned.

"I can see that," says Carly to Megatron. "But I think you're missing the point. Surely there is a difference between other people choosing to give you a label you don't want, and you picking a label that feels comfortable? I'm Carolina Whittaker, by the way. Carly for short. And you're Megatron."

"Yes," says Megatron, looking down at her. "Spike - "

"Yeah, yeah, the sacred bond of quadrant-corners," says Spike. "I'll come back later. Don't . . . "

When it becomes clear he isn't going to finish that statement, Carly laughs and says, "Off you go, matesprit of mine."

"Right," says Spike, a little wild-eyed.

They both watch him go, and then Megatron turns back to her. "Business first. Do you have any reasonable objections to my relationship with your matesprit?"

"If I were to say yes, because I'm a human being and we tend to be jealous of our matesprits - "

"I said a _reasonable_ objection," interrupts Megatron. "If that were the problem, you'd have objected to Bumblebee years ago."

Carly smiles up at him. "The one objection I had was that you'd hurt him, perhaps irreparably; but that was only right after he told me he'd ashed up with you. I know better now. Do you have any reasonable objection to my relationship with your auspitice?"

"None," says Megatron. "Actually I think it's good. Spike doesn't spend enough time with people his own species, and we can't give him enough tactile."

"Uh. What?"

"I have _read_ about wire mothers and monkey babies," says Megatron. "Humans don't just _like_ physical contact, you need it for proper neural development and mental health. It's good that someone is coming to Cybertron who will provide that."

Carly gapes. "Are you _joking_?"

Megatron nods, not in answer to the question. "He said you were going to jump at the change regardless - "

" - no _duh_ \- "

" - but coming up with a balanced team when you don't actually take your own physiological and psychological needs under deep consideration _here_ \- your own astronauts had to go _on strike_ to get ground control to start scheduling leisure time - "

" . . . huh," says Carly.

"What?" asks Megatron, guarded.

"You're really nothing like I thought you'd be," says Carly.

"Since every Autobot I've talked to so far seems to think I started the war to crown myself emperor, or something, I'll take that as a compliment. Didn't Spike tell you about the war?"

"Sort of. He wanted to . . . I asked him not to," says Carly. "I used to think I understood machines better than people, and then it turned out that some of the machines _are_ people and I'm useless with them, too, and - " Megatron was looking at her with a weird expression. " - oh, shit, I'm acting moiraily, aren't I?"

"Pale," says Megatron. "A bit, but it's not outside the realm of 'normal, for humans.' However, you're going to be coming to Cybertron with us. At this point, you really do have to learn the history of the war."

"Yeah, okay," says Carly. "But in return, you've _got_ to tell me how your canon works."

Megatron - frowns. "Why? You're not a weapon engineer. I read your papers," he adds in response to whatever expression she is making.

"Dude. Half that stuff was back-engineered off of weapons," says Carly. " _Autobot_ weapons, mostly, because you guys are, like, married to your guns. Which are so much better than the Autobot version, it's, like, seriously pathetic. I want to see what's under the casing!"

"Ah," says Megatron, and then in faintly strangled tones he says, "That particular phrase, in Cybertronian, is extremely concupiscent."

"Oh," says Carly. Then she says, "You think if we keep talking long enough I can manage to accidentally hit on you in every quadrant?"

Megatron looks down at her, silent. Then a lip twitches. "I think it likely." Carefully, he reaches over and _removes the canon_. "Come here. I can show you better if you can see."

So over the course of the next hour, Megatron field-strips his canon, cleans it, even allows her to help, and reassembles it. While he does, he tells her all about the systemic inequalities that led to the war on Cybertron. She isn't quite sure, the way their respective species experience time is so different, but she thinks the Decepticons had taken much more abuse - millions of years of abuses, piling up on top of each other - than any human group ever did before revolting. They've been fighting, all this time, for the right to make their own choices.

Except.

"Did you think the Autobots would deny them?"

"Not in a peripheral sense," says Megatron. "But they didn't want to tear down the civilization and rebuild it again properly, not really. They thought there was some rust and if they could just excise it . . . And it was all rust, brittle to the core."

"Yeah," says Carly, as Megatron closes the casing on his canon. "Spike's pretty great, huh?"

"Yes," says Megatron.

They chat more, technical stuff mostly, some ideas Carly has about power transmission. The canon basically converts one form of energy into another, and in theory she can pull that back and make something that lets them convert it into a low-loss form and send it wherever they need it, even through the spacebridge. She sketches out some ideas and sends them to Megatron's pad to show him.

"But you can't," says Megatron, looking at it. "How would you make this?"

"Uh. What?"

"How do you make features this small? Photolithography doesn't work at sizes smaller than the photon in question, and you can't make photons at that wavelength with enough energy - "

"You can't photoetch things smaller than photons," says Carly, slowly. "But you guys - oh my god. You guys build quantum computers by just making a moon-sized focusing crystal?"

"That was how it was done, yes," says Megatron. "We destroyed the facility fairly early in the war. Are you saying you _can_ etch things smaller than photons?"

"Oh my god," Carly repeats. No wonder all the Autobots are so weird about smartphones. "Megaton, last year we tested our first 8-bit quantum computer. It's no Teletran, but . . . "

Megatron is staring down at her. "It's a good thing you're already coming to Cybertron. I'd hate to have to kidnap you."

Carly stares back. Then she takes a deep breath, and very deliberately says, "It's not kidnapping if I'm cooperating."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As far as I know, all of the science is this chapter is accurate. Yes, we do regularly photoetch things onto microchips that are physically smaller than the photon we're using to etch. This works, somehow.
> 
> Still not employed. Oy. On the plus side today I went to a Bat Mitzvah party. That was fun.


	2. The One Where Megatron Has an Extremely Terrible Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter dedicated to [Red_Dragonn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_Dragonn/pseuds/Red%20Dragon), who requested, "Megatron from the transformers continuity of your choice has a bad day." I hope it works for you.

It takes Spike about two weeks to convince Optimus Prime that the overlayers have to come down.

It's _Spike_ , though, so of course Megatron doesn't find out about this for another week. That's when Carly pings them with a request to explain how the overlayers had been constructed, so they can start figuring out how to _de_ construct them without pancaking all the layers beneath. They first look up what a pancake is, and then ping Carly back to explain that the Autobots don't want to take down the layers.

Are you sure? asks Carly. Optimus Prime asked me to look into it.

This is so outrageous that they get up and out of the building the Decepticons had claimed as their own - no one, not even Optimus Prime in their boundless optimism, thought it was a good idea for Autobots and Decepticons to cohabitate just yet - and out into the city. The Autobots had actually built a new building, in what had once been the high-rent district. Then Spike had arrived, taken one look, and put his foot down. The Decepticons and Autobots had traded.

The humans had considered the arrangements, one a warren of tunnels on the lowest still-habitable layer, and the other a bright new construction incongruous amongst the otherwise decrepit city, and firmly told all of them to build their permanent habitation as near to halfway between the two as possible. This is only practical, because it would be unfair to make either one spend more time going to see them. It is just _also_ a ridiculously literal representation of the humans' generally conciliatory attitude, and Spike in specific.

And now Optimus Prime wants to bring down the ovelayers.

So they stomp over to the tunnels the Autobots are living in. They've cleaned them up, at least, gotten rid of the rubble and power washed the walls with acid until the filth dissolved. There is even a guard on duty, who says with only the faintest hint of fear in the radio bands, "Megatron. Can . . . can I help you?"

"Yes," they say. "I need to speak with Optimus Prime."

"I'll tell him you're here," says the guard, and then there is an encrypted burst in radio as they do so.

Optimus Prime sends back a message immediately, but it's an automated one: they are communing with the Matrix, and will be back when they are back.

Megatron _hates_ the Matrix with a passion. They are tempted to shout at the guard, but shouting never helps. Spike says that manners cost nothing and can buy friends, so instead they say, "Tell him I was here." Then, judiciously, "Please."

"O - of course."

They stomp back to the Decepticon building, dissatisfied. Optimus Prime has regularly shared memories of communing with the Matrix, which in and of themselves are just . . . calculations. Someone weighing the odds, running the numbers, and if the mind in question is huge and ancient and complex beyond the understanding of any mech, that isn't the fault of the Matrix. They can accept that. What they cannot accept is that it had to take anyone in order to run those calculations, much less Orion Pax. It doesn't matter if it didn't hurt, which they don't believe for a single solitary second anyway, and the Autobot don't get to claim that the Matrix is good when murder is a prerequisite.

(Here's what human philosophers did not teach Megatron, because they'd already learned the lesson millions of years ago: words don't matter, and actions do.)

They are, in fact, in just the vicious sort of mood to dissect poetry. They haven't told Optimus Prime that they're the Voice of Tarn; Orion Pax would have known, and somewhere, deep down, they're hoping that Optimus Prime will realize it too. They don't _enjoy_ laying their own work out vivisecting it for the Autobots, but they have to admit it is effective. So they do that for the next hour until Optimus Prime pings him with a message, copying Spike. A moment later, Spike pings and says that they all need to coordinate again anyway, so they should both meet up tomorrow for a date.

Spike doesn't _do_ dates the way a usual auspitice does dates. Spike does dates like a general marshaling his troops. It is one of the reasons Megatron loves him. So they agree to the date, and when they go to meet Spike Optimus Prime is there too.

Humans can't breath on Cybertron. The atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, with only seven percent oxygen and even less than that of volatile organics or water. Their own building is oxygen-pressurized, or course, and it's not like the atmosphere is caustic, or anything. It's just not possible for a human to breathe, so they all have to wear oxygen compressors, and the noisy devices prevent any kind of conversation. They'd built discussion rooms in, though, and that's where they go.

Spike looks between the two of them before he says, "Okay, Megatron. Go."

" _You want to take down the overlayers!_ " He points an accusatory finger.

Optimus Prime had been projecting confusion before, but now it turns to indignation. "Of course I want to take down the overlayers! Everyone should want to take down the overlayers! They're - intolerable!"

"I could have told you that! I _did_ tell you that! _Eight_ \- "

"Megatron," says Spike.

Megatron stops yelling. "I did tell him," he says. "Eight million years ago."

"Did he?" asks Spike, looking to Optimus Prime.

" . . . yes."

"Good," says Spike. "And?"

"And I said, yes, but where are we going to put everyone?" Optimus Prime lets that hang in the air for a moment before adding, "I didn't think he'd solve the problem by killing everyone. If you can call that a solution."

Spike glares at Optimus Prime with a look that suggests Optimus Prime is going to get to learn all about the Rohingya and the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust. What he _says_ , though, is, "Where do you plan to put everyone now?"

" . . . what?" asks Optimus Prime.

"The war is over," says Spike. "You have chosen other work, better work. But it means that everyone who saw which way the wind was blowing and could get out before it got bad, all of those people are going to start coming home soon. A lot of them, being people who could afford to get out, are going to expect to be treated as if caste is a real thing. Where are you going to put them?"

" . . . in the underlayers, with us," whispers Optimus Prime, already knowing it's the wrong answer.

"The underlayers that you're taking down?" asks Spike.

Optimus Prime shuts up.

Spike nods, point made, and turns to Megatron, and tilts his head.

"Where they already were," they say. "Dispersed across space. Oh, not those returning idiots who think we'll allow caste anymore, they _can_ go live with Optimus Prime until they agree about taking the overlayers down, but everyone else? We _did_ choose better work, and it's going to mean we _have_ to step out of the home that sparked us and sheltered up while we were in protoform, going out into the galaxy - "

"And never coming home?" asks Optimus Prime.

They backfire rudely. " _Home_. If it's not home for all of us . . . who gets to choose?"

Optimus Prime's optics widen.

"Senators?"

" _No_! We don't - we don't do that. Not anymore."

"Then who? You? You have that _thing_." They gesture to the Matrix.

"No. That's not - the Matrix isn't _for_ that."

"Then who?"

Optimus Prime gives Spike a pleading look. Spike looks back, unimpressed.

" . . . no one," says Optimus Prime, finally.

"What?"

"No one gets to live on Cybertron. Not in the long run. We'll take down the overlayers - remove the shackles that kept our brethren in chains more secure than any neural clamp - and then we leave." Optimus Prime is giving him a soppy look, almost exactly like the one Orion Pax had, back before. "Everyone equal, out amongst the stars."

"Good," says Spike. "That's good. That's a concrete plan. I think you have to leave some of the overlayers up, as a reminder, but we can work it out later. For now - Megatron? Was that what you needed?"

It was. Spike is like that. "Like you need to ask."

"Well, I did. Because _now_ we need to talk about taking down the overlayers."

They look at Optimus Prime, and Optimus Prime looks at him, and in unison they turned back to their auspitice.

 

The end result is - 

Well.

Humans hadn't built overlayers, and even in their close-packed cities space is limited. What they'd done was invent demolitions specialists. Most of the time it meant packing explosive charges around important structural supports to carefully collapse the building. When the city was too dense even for that, they had invented ways to demolish one layer at a time, all the way down. So they spend a couple of months enlarging the human quarters while Carly and Spike go back to Earth with Soundwave and Blaster and hire some demolitionists, and also a couple of media personalities from Earth who apparently just really like exploding things and are elated to have the chance to explode things on another planet.

After the inevitable hectic arrival settles, the Constructicons and Spike escort them down one layer so they can start taking a look at the construction, and things promptly go to shit.

"What do you mean, the layer collapsed? I thought it was stable!" they shout. "You told me it was stable!"

"I told you it hadn't moved in millenia," says Elita, not bowing a centimeter under the shouting. "That's not the same thing! All this recent movement . . . "

Megatron understands, and sits down, knee servos suddenly unable to hold him. "I see. Is - do we have anyone on radio?"

Elita shakes their head. "But Blaster and Soundwave are still - "

"Bring them back!"

" - in hyperspace, I was going to say," finishes Elita. Then, softly, they adds, "Look, Megatron - " and they realize in horror that they _pities them_.

"I do not _want_ your pity!"

"You need someone! If you don't want me," and winces, a little, but forges on, "if you don't want me, then go ask one of the humans. _They_ won't see anything wrong with it. I'll see myself out."

A few minutes later, they manage to dial Carly. She picks up on the second ring. "Megatron. Thank goodness. Spike is - "

"I know," they say. "Blaster and Soundwave are on their way. If anyone's conscious down there, we'll find them."

"And if they're not?"

"We will still find them," they say. They aren't golden age overseers, who just left mechs under cave-ins, after all. "Carly. You know Long Haul would have gone for Spike first." Long Haul owes Spike, and Decepticons take debts seriously.

"I know," says Carly. "Can I - is it too pale if I want to come wait with you?"

It is, but they don't want to be alone, either. "I'll come there," they say, instead. They are getting the sense of how humans do these things. Humans do not have auspitices and moirails; they just all pity each other, and when it's necessary they do those things for the ones in their cohort. He and Carly are cohort, 'in-laws' in human terminology, and friends besides. Of course she's willing to be their one-night-stand.

Or at least, they think she is until he arrives, and then they sit down in a room and Carly takes out a screen and says, "Can we work on the solar power conduits?"

Their optics wink out for a moment. "The solar power conduits."

"I still think there's something a little janky. They're going to overheat and mel - "

"Spike is trapped underground, or possibly dead, and you want to talk about _power conduits_?"

"Is there anything you or I can do for Spike, right now?" asks Carly.

They say nothing.

"So we can sit here panicking about it, and driving one another to panic about it, or we can keep busy and distract ourselves and maybe get something useful out of it."

So that's what they do. Carly is better at ignoring her own panic and sinking into the schematics; Megatron was never much a designer, even if they learned the basics. The two of them usually do make a good team, though, and despite the circumstances this time is no different. An hour passes, and then two, and then they say, "Do you . . . want to talk about it?"

"Do _you_?" asks Carly pointedly. When Megatron doesn't reply, she straightens up and says, "I need to eat. How are you for energon?"

They'd filled their tanks that morning. "Fine."

The kitchens are all in the parts of the building too small for mechs, so Carly leaves and comes back later with animal flesh and vegetable matter between two slices of processed grain. They keep working.

The hours crawl, but after another three have passed Elita calls back to let them know that Soundwave and Blaster have arrived and begun a grid search. Anyone who knows anything about mining should please come down to the transmitted coordinates.

Megatron repeated that as they stood. "I'm going to help."

"All right," says Carly. "Keep me posted."

It's another hour and a half before Blaster picks up the faint signal. Once he does, Soundwave and his cassetticons take over and in short order they've got communications established. All of the Constructicons are alive, but Long Haul and Hook are going to need some serious work.

"And Spike?" asks Optimus Prime, pleasantly, before Megatron can growl the demand.

"The humans are all fine, but one of the oxygen compressors was destroyed," says Scrapper. "They've been passing the others around. Mixmaster shored up the space some, so we're not in immediate danger."

"Local conditions: unstable. Seismic scan required," says Soundwave.

"Uh, yeah," says Scrapper, so Soundwave begins talking them through how to take one, even while he does his own from above. They argue, briefly, about the best way to get into the rubble without setting off another collapse, and then they begin digging.

Megatron could have gone their entire life without digging again, and that was without the nightmare urgency that there will be another collapse, or Spike will be brain-damaged by oxygen deficiency, or any of the thousand other scenarios their processor is pushing at them. They know mining, though. They know the creak of the surroundings under stress in in their chassis, and despite several minor collapses while digging down, no one is hurt because they always have a few moments' warning. Then they dig through those as well.

"I didn't know you knew anything about mining," says Optimus Prime.

"There's a lot you don't know about me." Megatron had often internally debated whether he should tell Orion Pax about their origins. Ultimately they'd decided to sheild them, and now they often wonder if that was the right thing after all. But it's worth it, to have not told then, for the expression on Optimus Prime's face now.

It's nearing midnight when they finally break through. Mixmaster immediately shores that up, and passes the humans up to them. They hand over the extra compressor, and Bumblebee takes them all, speeding off toward the humans' building. Another half-hour of digging extracts Hook, but Long Haul had part of their chassis crushed, and they have to shore up the whole ceiling before they can even start removing those debris. First Aid doesn't even wait for that, diving in the whole so they can begin immediate repairs to Long Haul's accessible bits.

The sun hasn't broken over the horizon, but the sky is definitely lightening, by the time they all get back to the surface. Spike meets them, Megatron and Optimus Prime both, as they climb out of the access shaft.

"Should you be walking?" asks Optimus Prime.

"I missed one meal and some sleep. I'm fine." Then, more quietly, "Thanks for coming for me. Both of you"

(Here's what Spike has taught him: words can be the only things that matter.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now in Los Angeles, looking out for a very old an anxious dog while his owner is in a different country. Calm down, dog. It is going to be okay.
> 
> ETA: If you spot any instances where I refer to any of the mechs by gender, please point them out. I changed that after writing, and I don't think I caught them all.


End file.
